


Caretaker

by spockside



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 16:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockside/pseuds/spockside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you an alien?" asked the thin grey man.</p><p>"No," Bruce replied from his seat amid the rubble.</p><p>"Then, son," said the man, "you got a condition."</p><p>How Bruce and the security man from Jersey crossed paths after the events of the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caretaker

**Author's Note:**

> Just because I love Harry Dean Stanton in all his incarnations.

"Scuse me, miss. I'm looking for someone I think lives here in the tower."  
  
The receptionist at the desk looked up at the sound of the reedy voice. The speaker matched the sound; he was thin and gray and looked as if he'd had a lot of mileage in his lifetime. He wore clothes that were clean, but faded, and there was a faint scent of cloves about him.  
  
"Certainly, sir. Do you have a name?"  
  
He looked down at her with dark eyes and a sardonic kind of smile.  
  
"I have a name," he replied. "What I don't have is the name of the man I'm looking for. In fact, this is a bit of a long shot - I saw him on the news, a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to see how he's doing."  
  
"Perhaps you mean Mr. Stark," said the lady, "the gentleman who owns the tower. I'm afraid he's not available for drop-in visitors, but if you want to leave your - "  
  
The thin man interrupted her politely.  
  
"Not Mr. Stark," he said. "Likely a friend of his. About this tall - " he indicated something close to his own height - "in his forties maybe, dark curly hair. Kinda hairy all over, actually."  
  
The receptionist looked slightly alarmed. "I'm sorry, sir, we have several hundred employees and tenants here - do you have any further information about the gentleman?"  
  
"Well, I don't know whether it's common knowledge," said the visitor, "but he has an alter ego, of sorts. Big fellow, runs around naked. He fell out of the sky into my warehouse, that's how we met."  
  
Now she looked both alarmed and doubtful.  
  
Before she could say anything, the man spoke up again.  
  
"I bet you get your share of lunatics here," he said conversationally. "People who claim to know Mr. Stark, or Captain Rogers, or who think they've seen something the Avengers should know about. People who are after something for themselves. Not me. I'm here to see if the fellow I met came out all right. I asked him if he had somewhere to go and he said, 'Stark Tower', so here I am."  
  
He closed his mouth and stood there calmly, as if he could wait forever.  
  
~~  
  
"So I was thinking, maybe something with a motion detector - " Tony said, tapping the display with a stylus.  
  
"How fast could it be deployed?" Bruce asked thoughtfully.  
  
"Security to Lab One," came a voice over the comm. "Anybody home?"  
  
"Lab One, geniuses at work," said Tony briskly. "Who wants to know?"  
  
"This is Blake, in Security. We have a visitor here looking for someone whose name he doesn't know; we think he might be looking for Dr. Banner."  
  
"I'm here," said Bruce, startled. He turned to Tony and said, "I don't know anyone in New York, not any more, except you guys. You don't think it's - Ross, do you?"  
  
"Blake," said Tony. "Do you have a visual?"  
  
The display next to the comm unit threw up a black and white image piped in from the reception area. Bruce got closer and peered at the image as Tony asked, "What makes you think he's looking for Dr. Banner?"  
  
"The man he describes is fairly average in height, build, coloring," said Blake. "Very non-specific. Until he told us the guy is also 'big and green' on occasion."  
  
Tony looked at Bruce, whose eyes were riveted on the monitor.  
  
"Ooooo-kay," Tony said cautiously. "Stand by. Bruce, has anyone besides the team seen you transform recently, that you know of?"  
  
"No," said Bruce, still staring. "Yes. I don't know - he might have. He says I was awake when I fell..."  
  
"You know this guy?" asked Blake on the comm.  
  
"It isn't an issue of national security or anything," Bruce said distractedly. "He's just a guy from Jersey - I borrowed his bike, he loaned me some clothes."  
  
Tony turned to ask Bruce something, but his friend was already out of the room and headed for the elevator.  
  
Bruce's visitor was seated in one of the comfortable armchairs in a corner, gazing out the window. When he saw Bruce, he rose slowly and smiled.  
  
"There you are," he said.  
  
"Yeah," said Bruce, shaking his hand. "Thanks for the ride, by the way. Um, I hope you didn't need it back."  
  
The old man shook his head gently. "I only use it to tool around the warehouse," he said. "Not much left of that. Not your fault - it's been falling down for years."  
  
He then gestured upward, at the Tower in general.  
  
"You said this was where you could do the most good," he said. "Did you?"  
  
"So they tell me," Bruce replied. "I don't usually remember what happens when the other guy gets loose."  
  
"I'm guessing he doesn't remember what you do, either," the visitor said.  
  
"I never really thought about that."  
  
Bruce looked around at the shiny, recently polished reception area and the busy people in it, then stuck his hands in his pockets and said, "You want to go for coffee or something?"  
  
"Sure," said his new friend. "It's my day off, I got nowhere to be."  
  
~~  
  
When Bruce wandered back into the Tower, through the private entrance as business hours were over, he was greeted by JARVIS.  
  
"Dr. Banner," said the perpetually calm, even voice. "Welcome back."  
  
"Thank you, JARVIS. Is anyone looking for me?"  
  
"Not particularly, though Mr. Stark has been muttering under his breath about you 'playing hooky' for the past ninety-two minutes."  
  
"That's gotta be a record," Bruce smiled, getting into the elevator that would take him up to the residential floors.  
  
"Not quite, sir. There was one occasion on which Mr. Stark held forth on the iniquities of Director Fury and the World Security Council for ninety-nine minutes."  
  
"You don't listen in on anyone else's conversations, do you, JARVIS?"  
  
"Certainly not, sir. Only Mr. Stark's soliloquys, and I am programmed to encrypt and store them on a server accessible only to him and Ms. Potts."  
  
Bruce shook his head, amazed as usual by the talents and quirks of his science buddy. He stepped out of the elevator into the common living area and saw Pepper and Tony on the couch. Pepper's laptop was open, so he didn't feel he was intruding when he came over and flopped down in an armchair.  
  
"So, how was your day out?" Tony asked brightly. "I figured out the motion detector thing, all by myself, by the way."  
  
Pepper raised her eyes heavenward momentarily, kind of a half-eyeroll, and smiled at Bruce.  
  
"It was - great," said Bruce. "We had coffee and pie, he told me about serving on a diesel sub in World War II and Korea. I told him about living in India and how in some ways, it isn't much different from New York."  
  
"Fury would have kittens if he only knew how much classified chit chat went on," said Tony with relish.  
  
"Only the stuff about me, and the other guy," Bruce pointed out.  
  
"Which brings me to my next question, which is, how does he know the other guy?"  
  
Bruce filled them in on the brief conversation he'd had with his visitor after the other guy had fallen through the roof of his warehouse.  
  
"Sounds like quite the philosopher," said Tony. "Ask him in for pizza next time you see him."  
  
Bruce scratched his head. "Don't know when that'll be. The company that owns the warehouse is planning to raze it and sell the land. He's only got a couple more weeks on the job. 'Planned obsolescence', he called it."  
  
"Really," said Pepper, like a dog pricking up its ears. "Where is this warehouse? Can you show me on a map?"  
  
"I can try." Bruce scooted over to join her on the couch. He had a funny feeling that Stark Industries might be interested in acquiring a few acres in New Jersey soon. They might need a caretaker for whatever they were going to build.  
  
Maybe next time, Bruce would ask him his name.


End file.
